The Painting

You know how a girl's brain works...a dozen thoughts cycling through the brain in a millisecond?  This post was supposed to be about home decor plans...which includes our idea to paint a landscape for our bedroom...which lead me to think about a painting video I just watched...which illustrates so well my life right now. So...it is no longer time to chat about pillows and picture frames.  We're "getting down to the nitty gritty," to paraphrase one of my hubby's favorite movie quotes.

Last year was wonderful, and at the same time filled with overwhelming adjustments to a new life, many lose ends, and much heartache and loss.  There were amazing moments being newlyweds, meeting new friends, getting to know a new family, exploring a new city; but I felt as though I was constantly distracted by having to wait out intense emotions and psychological adjustments as I “found my place” here, coped with missing the familiar, strove for contentment in uncertain living arrangements, watched loved ones go through hard times, and grieved over losing our little boy and losing a close friend to suicide the very next month.  So much seemed out of control. 

Yet, through that year, I see how much stronger I became in areas I didn’t realize were weak.  And this is God’s work, God’s painful yet refreshing work. 

The biggest “work” was finally taking my habit of worry head-on, realizing how debilitating it is.  It is a matter of trust and control, I realized.  I fear future unknowns, afraid something will happen to destroy me or ruin my plans. I loathe past mistakes and hurts, dreading they’ve damaged me for life.  “What ifs” and over-analysis drive me crazy.  I still have a ways to go, but cracking down on that habit has given me a new freedom to take and enjoy each day as it comes, for all that it’s worth.  Going through things I thought would kill me and realizing I survived gives me new courage that even if my worst nightmares happen, I’ll be okay.  God’s going nowhere, and has proven He knows and He cares.  Big time.

This year has been…quieter somehow, with so many blessings that I often stand there puzzling over how all this good could be happening to me, of all people!  We have a beautiful house, a place of our own.  We have a healthy little one on the way, and a peace that all will be well.  Dan has work, and good work.  We are close to family and still hold onto amazing friends. Most of our material goods seem to have been randomly given to us, most often right at the moment we need them. When I go to the store, I often find that most of the items on my list are on sale.  We live in a vacation spot.  The sunshine has made it to the island…off and on...finally! 

There are still days when the world seems too heavy to bear. Sometimes the tears fall so heavy I feel as if my soul is somehow trying to shed my mind and body and escape the weight of scars and burdens it must always carry. 

But even still, we’ve been given a breather, and I can’t really put down how thankful I am for it.  I feel like a kid at Christmas.  And the next moment I feel guilty for having it all, especially when comments come and we’re asked how come we have it so good, as if life was a competition and we're winning somehow by the things that happen to us.  It doesn’t feel good.  But this I know: this season, too, shall pass.  We’ll hit hard spots – many of them – as the years roll by.  Life is life.  It’ll happen.  Just…some seasons are softer in life and some are harder… Each is to be appreciated in a different way.

First You Paint the Sky by Don Gray

This is where the painting video comes in.  I was watching someone paint a landscape in acrylic, with rolling hills and dramatic clouds.  Layer after layer, colour after colour, stroke after stroke, it came together.  Sometimes I thought it was done and then the artist would add more, and I would think, Aaaah.  That did look good, but this looks even better! 

I then found myself in “philosophical mode.”  Now, if you are my mother or siblings, you're laughing at this point, knowing what that's like. Anna’s thoughts become a bit…abstract and…hard to follow. But really, this time, I truly mean to make myself as clear as possible.  I want to explain how wonderful an illustration that painting session was of something (I find) quite profound.

As the artist painted the sky, he began with a soft blue, leaving a bit of canvas blank for fluffy white clouds.  It was so peaceful, simple, beautiful.  And then he was suddenly painting on globs of grayish-brown paint here and there, all over the sky.  Whaaaat? I thought. Where is he going with this?  But then he took out his white paint, and as he covered the brown paint with white, it created a depth to the clouds that was even more passionate and beautiful than the simple, flat white. 

In our lives, I think some seasons are like those simple, smooth layers: light, bright and lovely. Then seasons come that overshadow that layer with dark and dismal things that don’t seem to blend at all.  Life looks completely ruined.  However, upon waiting out the season, you find yourself in a new place where fresh and beautiful changes are added to the picture. It is then that you realize that the preceding dark season adds a depth and contrast to the joy and pleasure of the here and now. 

And so it continues.  The painting becomes deeper and deeper as the layers meld into a more intense portrayal of something beautiful.  Life becomes deeper and deeper as the seasons blend experiences together in a more intense reality of God’s breathtaking touch.

I wrote a poem once, and it ended with these words:

“My life is now an endless scroll, on which He paints for me His soul.” 

God’s soul, painted on our lives.  Is it possible to see the inspiring shades of colour even when we’re dead tired and stuck in traffic, staring at a mound of dishes and laundry, overwhelmed by bank account figures, burned out by never-ending drama, aching from words that bruise our very core, fuming over a silly misunderstanding, kicking ourselves over a stupid mistake, frustrated by an event that overthrew the plan for the whole day, the entire year? 

I sure wish I could carry poetic thoughts like that into bad moods and tough moments.  Well, all I can do is give it a shot.  I know I have the ability to control my perspective.  God help me allow your sleek strokes of genius to paint over my messy globs of stupidity. 

So… I’ll stop typing and post this blog and then I’ll be on with the rest of the day.  Let’s see how long this philosophical streak leaves me inspired.  Good thing God’s an expert at “paint disaster makeovers." I have a feeling I’ll be throwing up paint-spattered hands in a panic in the very near future.  The very near future.  To copy one of my hubby’s favorite comments when distaster strikes…Hallelujah.